30,000-40,000 households giving up LPG subsidy daily

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's magic appears to be working well among cooking gas consumers. With a little assistance from state-run fuel retailers.

| TNN | Updated: Aug 25, 2015, 11:35 IST

Between 30,000 and 40,000 households are giving up LPG subsidy daily in response to a countrywide door-to-door... Read More

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's magic appears to be working well among cooking gas consumers. With a little assistance from state-run fuel retailers.
Between 30,000 and 40,000 households are giving up LPG subsidy daily in response to a countrywide door-to-door campaign launched by the oil marketers to capitalize on the prime minister's call to 'Give It Up'.

The result is nothing but magical in a country used to government freebies. The number of households surrendering subsidy has already topped 20 lakh mentioned in the PM's Independence Day speech.

On Saturday alone, nearly 29,000 households — a tad less than usual — surrendered subsidy. Add to that nearly 50,000 surrender requests that remain pending for verification at any given time, and it makes a compelling narrative of government success.

On August 3, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Parliament that nearly 13.87 lakh consumers had given up subsidy as of July 28. Godfrey Pimenta, convener of Mumbai-based NGO 'Watchdog Foundation', quoted a reply to an RTI query saying 7.77 lakh households had forgone subsidy as of July 1. In other words, the number of people surrendering LPG subsidy almost doubled in a span of 27 days.

"Our campaigners have found that the PM's appeal in the TV ad urging economically well off people to forgo subsidy in favour of the poor has found a resonance among consumers. Many are willing but somehow never got around to doing it for some reason or another. Once our boys approach them with papers, it takes little to make them sign on the dotted line," a senior executive of an oil company told TOI on condition of anonymity since he is not authorized to speak to media.

Modi first made the give it up call in April. The door-to-door campaign was launched in May-end and picked up momentum from June. The campaign is focused on affluent localities. "Someone living in Delhi's GK-I or Mumbai's Pali Hill doesn't need subsidy of about Rs 200 per cylinder at current rates. They understand this and are signing up willingly. The PM's appeal has made it easier for us to persuade people," the executive said.

All this is happening in times of low international oil and gas prices. The real test will be when prices rise and the subsidy gap widens to Rs 400-600 per cylinder. The subsidy had risen to Rs 800 during oil's peak run in the 2008-09 period.

There are 15.3 crore LPG-consuming households registered with the three oil marketing companies. Nearly 14 crore have joined Pahal, the programme for transferring cash subsidy directly into the bank account of consumers. So far, Rs 23,848.32 crore has been transferred by way of subsidy. The government has set a target of getting a crore households to give up subsidy.

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